So i was plugging away at work today, when one of the adults in the building (D) came in and said "the computer M and i use isn't working." D and M use an old Blue translucent iMac named "leo".

i kicked off my usual debugging questions: (what do you mean "isn't working"?, does it turn on? can you log in? connect to the internet?) and he said "it doesn't turn on." i went in to look at it, checked the power cables, pressed the power button, and -- sure enough -- it didn't turn on. Then i swapped around some power cables to rule out a cable failure: still not working. (D said, "well, i feel better now -- that's what i tried doing.") i scratched my head, and told D i'd bring it back after getting a chance to look into it further.

As i was carrying leo out of the door, a couple drops of some sort of fluid dripped out of the case onto my foot, which i noticed only because i was wearing sandals. Finally, a justification for not wearing closed-toe shoes while doing tech work! leo was wet. Looking further, the table it was on had little drops on it a well, as did the printer behind it. D and M both immediately, loudly protested that they had never ever drunk anything near the computer, though honestly, the idea that they had spilled such a large amount of coffee or whatever had never even crossed my mind. M said the machine had been working fine on monday (two days ago).

Further investigation revealed stacks of paper which had been warped by some sort of fluid, and all of the residue i could find was yellowish-brown in color and a little bit sticky. There appeared to also be some residue on one of the pipes running along the ceiling (~5 meters up). I called in the bldg manager, who called in the custodian, and the three of us had a look at it.

The culprit? They'd been washing the floors upstairs earlier this week. They wash the floors here by flooding them and mopping them up, possibly with chemicals/stains/waxes as well. They always do a good job. The floors in this building are incredibly smooth and shiny. However, where pipes run between floors, they create a little channels for runoff. The computer and printer were located directly underneath one such conduit. So when the floors were flooded upstairs, the computer and the printer were spattered (filled?) with floor juices raining down from on high.

i've opened up leo to let it dry out, and to try to salvage the data from it. i dunno if it's going to be repairable, but i'll give it a shot. One more work hazard to remember. Always look at the ceiling when setting up a computer!